At the Earport with Sean

At the Earport
Originally uploaded by meekorouse

Was a long trip to the World. I returned the night of the 11th of December, but have yet to sift through the photos in detail.

There's so many thousands of pix to cull through and edit and upload! I swear I'll get around to working on this more soon.. but until then I hope everyone has a magical and Merry Holiday..

Happy Solstice!

Food & Wine Workation #2 Eat to the Beat

Monday was a late start. After having breakfast with SeanYoda before heading to work, I came back to the room to find that housekeeping had already come to our room!


Breakfast at "Everything Pop" food court. SeanYoda is ready for work.. and surely the best dressed in the food court.

I spent a good chunk of the morning uploading those MNSSHP pix and got on the Studios bus around Noon.. No big deal because I did a LOT of walking! Lunch was at the Commissary where I watched them prep the salads while waiting for my order to be fulfilled.. Suffice to say I will be asking for my dressing on the side from here on out.. Yikes! Was that a 1/4 cup of 1/5 cup ladle of dressing?? I'm too scared to find out. =P
I did a lot of walking.. to and from DHS via the walkway to Boardwalk Inn. The highlight of the day was getting a seat (with no waiting) at the 515pm Eat to the Beat concert featuring Sugar Ray. Not a ginormous fan of his (compared to say, REM or Depeche Mode.. or fellow Eat the Beat performer Howard Jones, who performs later this week!) but I do like several of the band's songs..

Here's a couple images that worked out for me from the concert.. I didn't have the 'big lens' with me so I'm grateful that I got any at all:



I did get my first 2 stamps in my Festival passport:

Stamp #1: Greece: Greek Yogurt with fresh Strawberries Parfait

Stamp #2: Morocco: Beef Kefta Pocket and a Harissa Chicken Roll (both were yummy but the Harissa was the winner of the two)

See lots more images HERE

Food & Wine Workation: Arrival & Party

Happy Halloween!



Coming to you 'live' from Lake Buena Vista, FL (or Walt Disney World) we're on another of SeanYoda's busy business trips where he works while we play.

This is the first of many updates (I hope):

We arrived Saturday October 15th and spent some time visiting with my mom. October 16th we met up with my Aunt Sue and Uncle Carl(M) and had lunch to celebrate my mom's partner Ray's birthday.
Ray, my mom and Aunt Sue Around 2pm we headed off to the World and Pop Century to check in..


Our Owners Locker was just being rolled out to our room as we exited the online check-in area. Talk about great timing!


We were able to get into the Magic Kingdom around dinner time and able to catch up with our friends Jason and Mel and their Little Souvenir:
Mel and Little Souvenir!

Eventually it was time for the party to start.. We hadn't been in some time and we were able to enjoy the Halloween parade "Boo to You" which was even better than I recall it, especially since we got to see the Headless Horseman this time..




and we met up with long time no see #radp friends Bill and Dee W. and their daughter Bailey.

There's lots of images (more on Sean's cel since the camera battery died and I forgot to bring the spare battery) including many "Hallowishes" firework photos, which you can see HERE

AP SoundSational Parade Event!

Keeping my promise of updating this blog. I wanted to share a few images from the Disney Park Blog's "Annual Passholder SoundSational Parade Viewing Party" (or whatever it was really called).

Basically the Disney Parks Blog had a special event after park closing.. You needed to RSVP with your name and AP barcode number and they picked a couple thousand people.. You could invite like 5 other valid AP holders to come along.. so there was potential to be around 9,000 folks. I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I got picked, as did SeanYoda, as well our friend Barry. I know Barry was going to ask some folks to join him.. but Sean & I came in on our own RSVP.

This event was amazing and wonderful and fun for me. It reminded me a lot of the D23 events that I get to tag along with SeanYoda for when he's able to get tickets. The major thing about this was it was free and the quality of the event was really up there. The key thing is that we got wristbands when we checked in, so we were checked several times coming and going around the park near closing time.

Only certain parts of the park were open, so there was better crowd control than a lot of the regular holiday events open to the general public. There were "special" food items only available from 4 to 10pm.. A special item at specific eateries. At Redd Rocket's Pizza Port, for example, there was a yummy buffalo chicken pizza (anyone could get it but you had to be there from 4pm on.. park closed at 7pm I think)


The parade started up around 930pm:


There was a panel with Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily at Tomorrowland Terrace where they talked about the design experience and SoundSational specifically, as well took Q&A afterwards:



This is about where the fun for SeanYoda ended as he had to take a work call and went to the Grand Cal (Hearthstone) to log on to his work and take care of a call that came in (OK, so he was on call at Disneyland.. you got to have fun when you can squeeze it in, right?) Unfortunately it ended up being a false alarm, but he couldn't get back into the park, so he missed the last of the Q&A and the flot viewing.

Yes, float viewing. Another treat was that they rolled out a few of the SoundSational floats so you could take a closer look at them. Several of the cast and characters from the parade were also there for photo ops, (they, like the floats were behind a rope).
Princess Tiana and some of the Second Line dancers.

fans of The Rescuers will recognize Evinrude (who is placed on Tiana's float)

Jody Daily and Kevin Kidney made an appearance with a couple of the paper sculpture models of their designs for the floats.

This is where Kevin explains (again) to a guest about his shirt being a very limited special run that he and Jody made in honor of their work on the parade.

We have about 200 images from the parade, panel and post-parade float images (I culled them down from over 500) They can be seen HERE on my flickr. It was truely a lot of fun and I"m really glad I got to attend. If you read Disney Parks Blog and you happen to see they have an AP event or event of any kind that you can try for, do it. They are totally worth it.

Meeting up with Shawna & David at DCA

Saturday the 8th we took the LAX carshare to Anaheim to meet up with Shawna and David who were in town celebrating their wedding anniversary. We met up at DCA then walked over to Trader Sam's for drinks after they checked into their room at the Grand Cal.
Shawna and David had reservations at Catal but we were able to join them:

David and Shawna looking very happy to be having dinner..

Sean and I split a salad and I ordered the chicken paella.

Sean had the suckling pig:


After dinner we rode a few attractions then watched World of Color! You can see the entire set HERE We were so glad to get to spend some time with our friends on their special anniversary weekend and hope they enjoyed the rest of their stay at "the Happiest Place on Earth." =)

A little workation!

Sean was able to meet up with some #radp friends after he got off work Tuesday night.. Jack, BigBrian and Bookbabe (Jennifer) were down for food and wine fest and making a side trip to the "Gurgling Suitcase".

Happy Birthday.. Walt Disney World! (at Disneyland)

"My name is Dug. I have just met you and already I love you.. Squirrel!"
Today we headed to Disneyland to celebrate Walt Disney World's 40th birthday (hence my Orange Bird D23 tee) I asked Sean to stop in at guest relations to pick up a couple birthday buttons. We wore the birthday buttons all day which said "Happy Birthday.. Disney World" (the last part written on by a nice Cast Member) which we had to explain to many many people... but luckily a few savvy cast members "got it".. which just goes to show I can be just as "DF" as the next person. ;P

A ton of photos were taken.. you can see them HERE

Dinner with Friends at OKW

Sean was able to get off work in time to meet up with for dinner with friends at Old Key West. Jason & I were already at the Gurgling Suitcase when he, Brian and Jill (and eventually Bleepin' Wife and Little Souvenir) found us.
Sean, Jill, Brian and Jason at the Gurgling Suitcase.. After dinner we headed to the lounge for a round of "fluxx" which was crazy but fun. More pix HERE

Lunch with Mom & Ray

Today I had lunch with my mom and her partner Ray.. While we were shopping at Downtown Disney guess who I ran into??

It's our friend Kevin who happened to be in the area after giving a presentation somewhere nearby. =)


Here's Mom & myself in front of the entrance at Fulton's Crab House..

photo was taken by Ray Haller.

HERE'S the rest of the pix from the day (including dessert!)

Meeko with the Statue!

Meeko with the Statue!
Originally uploaded by meekorouse

Saturday July 23rd, Sean & I took a special D23 members hosted tour of the Disney Studios in Burbank..

One of the pluses was getting to see one of the Disney Archives offices and see some of the neat items they have there. Dave Smith came out of retirement to talk to us & show us a few of the items including the first ticket ever sold at Disneyland (which was purchased by Roy O Disney, Walt's brother) and this special Oscar statuette, which was won for "The Living Desert" in 1953.

You can see the entire set HERE

40x40 at WDW: the People Mover

As part of Kevin Yee's '40x40' meetups planned throughout 2011, folks met up at the Main Street Cinema then rode the People Mover (as one of the original attractions when Disney World first opened in 1972).

a majority of the folks in the group are gathered..

We did ride some other attractions including the Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise.. and we even took time to say hello to some popular pixies.. including Tinker Bell:


You can see the entire set HERE

Pie and Friends!

We started the day at the Magic Kingdom where we met up for Dole Whips (or in our case dole pineapple spears) with friend Caren B. and her husband Bernie visiting from Pennsylvania:



Eventually we headed to Celebration for the Great American Pie Festival.. just full of the naughty.. but lots of good!

mmmm pie!
We met up with more friends:

Kevin and Michelle

John & Stacey

Kim and Rob!
We even ran into a Food Network Celebrity:
Here I am with Adam Gertler
You can see the rest of the pie fest pix HERE